


the bond within

by writedeku



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: (whispers) the will of fire, AKA Driving Each Other's Care, AKA How Keith and Lance Bond With Lions, AKA Saving Each Other, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Description of Torture That Is Brief But Present, Fluff and Angst, M/M, Rage is Not A Good Way of Fighting But It Works, Season 2 spoilers, Tooth-Rotting Fluff, lion bonding, the power of belief
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-02
Updated: 2017-08-02
Packaged: 2018-12-10 10:13:11
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,602
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11689509
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/writedeku/pseuds/writedeku
Summary: “Keith is falling and I am not letting him die,” Lance wraps his hand around the strings and pulls even more firmly. “Red. You chose Keith because he’s noble. He’s willing to die to do the right thing. I know I’m not Keith. But please help me save him.”





	the bond within

**Author's Note:**

> Hey guys! I wanted to celebrate the nearing of season 3 with a little season 2 recap and love. The ending of this fic is set before the Fight to End All Fights with Zarkon at the end of season 2, but after the Blade of Marmora. Enjoy!

Everything is quiet. It always is inside, for the only sound Lance can hear is the sound of his own breathing, harsh in the solemness of the situation. For Lance sits in the middle of his lion, not on his chair but on the floor, staring straight ahead at a nothingness that blossoms and blooms before his eyes. 

The darkness is so deep he cannot tell up from down, cannot tell whether he’s even facing the right way. 

He searches through the vast emptiness, reaching out with hands that grab at nothing and tug it closer to his heart. He feels like he’s swimming. As he moves, kicking with useless feet as he floats, he finds a…a something drawing closer, and closer to him. The sound of his own blood thunders in his ears as the quiet seeps into his bones and clogs up his heart. 

He blinks uselessly for eyes closed or open there is nothing new that appears, nothing that distinguishes whether he sees or does not, but he blinks, and suddenly there’s a thread in front of him. 

It’s a blue thread. He reaches out and holds the line; it is light and flowing in his hands, as though he is holding a stream of water. He follows it to where it's tied around his fourth finger, and then he tugs on the string and uses it to pull himself towards where he knows he’s supposed to go. 

More and more strings gather around him, some as thin as a needle, some as big as the ocean itself, where he cannot even see where the width of it ends. The threads come together, pulling toward him and wrap themselves around him. They tangle around his legs, in his hair, winding around his neck, yet still he pushes forward. Still he pulls on the strings in front of him and still he moves. 

At the centre of the strings, a lion sits, its eyes blue with ageless wisdom and knowledge. It looks at Lance and it sees everything, his fears and insecurities, his passion and his love. The lion looks at him and sees only beauty in everything he does, in the determination on his face as he pulls towards him, in the fierce loyalty that sits in his heart and chitters in his ears. 

“Hey, Blue,” Lance says as he draws near the lion and holds onto it. “How's my favourite girl?”

The lion does not reply, it never makes a noise. What Lance feels instead is a rush of feeling he somehow interprets as a response. _Lance,_ it says. _Lance, oh Lance. My paladin._

* * *

In the middle of battle is when Keith finds himself tossed out of his lion and hurtling to the ground. It isn’t Red’s fault, it’s Keith’s for not holding on tight enough when they did their loop. Therefore, now here he is, the wind in his hears, his scream dying on the edge of his tongue as he drops and drops and drops. Does this planet’s ground ever come? Is falling really this long when you know you will hit the ground? His arms and legs pinwheel uselessly. He can hear a _thunk,_ a sound louder than the beat in his head and in his heart as his lion hits the ground, frozen from the electrical beam this race proves to use quite well.

Oh. He’s going to hit the ground, and he is going to die. 

Dying has never mattered to Keith. It’s simply a fact of life; you live, you fight, you die. Dying now or dying then was never a thing that he cared about; he crossed the street without looking and jumped off cliffs without knowing how deep the bottom was. 

But now a red thread flashes before his eyes, and an image appears before him. Calling him. _Keith, Keith, Keith! Keith, my Keith._ Oh, his lion. It's right. He’s got something to live for, a family of six others, of eleven, of technology and faith and love. That's right. 

Something grabs him. He chokes as he’s brought of his free fall, and he blinks his eyes open blearily to see- to see, he’s in the claws of the red lion, and Lance is laughing hysterically into his comms. 

“Keith! We made it! I actually made it, I piloted this, we caught you. Oh thank god. You were going to be _street meat.”_

His eyes blink open blearily. He’s in the claws of the red lion, and somehow Lance is in his cockpit, clutching onto the controls in fear and excitement. 

“You're in Red?” Keith asks. The lion purrs in his mind. It says _this one, I will protect with you._ He cannot understand it. 

“What do you mean, protect with me?” he asks the lion later as he sits crosslegged in the seat, but the lion only replies with a gentle sound. 

_Don’t you want to?_

* * *

Lance had seen the red lion go down right next to him and his first thought was that _Keith would be alright._ Because Keith is always alright, he’s just that kind of guy. He refocused on fiddling with the electrical system as the bottom, trying to follow Pidge’s instructions to disable the barrier around the electrical pulse that was bringing down the lions. Blue was too far away for him to reach at this point, having been asleep when the weapon descended from the sky like Lucifer itself falling.

That’s when he heard Shiro scream, “Keith’s falling! We won’t make it!”

_Keith's falling…?_ Lance looks up in alarm and thinks of a Keith pancake on the floor of this planet, and his heart stops. Keith is falling. 

_Blue!_ His heart screams, but his lion roars at its frustration to help, it cannot make it in time either. He is now panicking. Keith is vital to the team. Keith needs to be there for Voltron. Keith. Keith. Keith, who always argued with him and picked fights, Keith who is insufferable. 

He turns to the red lion and lays his palm on the side. The lion is by all rights dead, it’s sustained too many hits from the electrical pulse to stay online. But Lance lays his palm on it anyway and thinks _come to me, Red._

The darkness appears before his eyes again, and this time it is red threads that encircle him, though they are not the peaceful kind like Blue had. These ones grab at him and wrap around his neck in a display of dominance. The threads circle tighter and _squeeze._ Lance shoulders it all. 

“I’m not afraid of you,” Lance says. He holds onto the threads firmly and _yanks._ “I’ll never be afraid of you. We need to go.”

_Paladin,_ the lion roars in his mind. _You would dare to pilot me?_

“Keith is _falling_ and I am not letting him die,” Lance wraps his hand around the strings and pulls even more firmly. “Red. You chose Keith because he’s noble. He’s willing to die to do the right thing. I know I’m not Keith. But help me save him.”

A lion appears before him. Its red eyes see everything; his shortcomings and his triumphs, his weakness and his potential. 

_Why would you do that?_

“Because I’m his friend!” Lance roars, and then the lion opens up for him and he leaps into the cockpit. The controls respond to his touch. The conversation felt like it lasted an eternity, but it must’ve not, must’ve lasted nothing at all, for Keith is still falling. 

“Keith!” he shouts, and then they’re off, arcing through the air, snatching Keith out of the air just before he hits the mountainside. 

A laugh bubbles up inside of him, hysterical and painful. Keith is safe. Why does he feel so relieved?

“Red,” he chokes, pressing his head to the controls. He breathes out and smiles. “Thank you.”

* * *

This fight on the planet is particularly nasty. Keith is exhausted, swinging his bayard around in a desperate attempt to keep the Galra at bay, but they just keep coming. They always do. His swings are slow and off course; he’s stumbling and falling. After a jab at one of them, Keith trips over a rock and falls straight down the cliffside, tumbling over and over and hitting something solid before he hit the ground.

It’s the blue lion. 

But that can’t be, for Lance is up on the cliff, sniping those in the control tower. The blue lion should not be here, and yet it is. 

The hatch on the top slides open and Keith falls inside. Once his feet make contact with the inside of the ship, his mind falters. He’s standing on clouds in the middle of the sky, looking at blue all around him. A brilliant, bright blue, it is afternoon, the sun is high in the sky. He looks down and sees an endless ocean; he can even smell the salt tang in the air as he breathes in.

_Keith,_ everything says. _My paladin wants more than anything to protect you._

“Thank you,” Keith says, and stretches his hands out to the sky. In Red, he only ever sees it in sunset. He’s free and open, he runs forward on the sky and steps out into a bright nothingness and sees blue all around him. It stains his body and coats it with a peaceful shade. “Lance wants to protect me?”

_My paladin is fierce in his loyalty and unwavering in his dedication. Will you take me to him?_

Keith blinks his eyes open to see he’s sitting the pilot’s chair, already holding onto the controls. “You’ve let me in, Blue. It seems only fair. Let's see what Lance gets to do!”

They take off though the sky, crashing into the control tower as they see Lance surrounded by a bunch of Galra using him as a punching bag. 

His immediate thought is to fire, but he’s not in Red. He’s in Blue, he’s got to think like Lance and be like Lance. How should he do that? Lance is sarcastic and witty, his tongue holds bites no one recovers from. He’s sharp and he’s annoying, he gets on all of Keith’s nerves with his voice and his expressions and his mannerisms. 

And yet, here he is, sitting in Lance’s lion. 

“Blue? Let’s put an end to this,” Keith calls, and opens his mind. The freeze ray is pin point, nails all of the Galra but Lance. Lance stares at the new sculptures. He looks up in the sky and sees Blue. “Hey Lance! I got ya, buddy.”

“Blue!" Lance cries out, and rushes towards the lion. He gives it a little kiss on its metallic nose and Keith can feel the pleased rumble than careens through the lion. “Wait, Keith? Oh my god! You let him pilot you? That sleaze bag? Ahh, get out! Get out! You’ll corrupt her!”

Keith watches him bang on the lion fruitlessly, a small smile on his face. “This guy wants to protect me, hmm?”

_Where you would give your life for the cause, Lance would give his life for others. He sent me to get you. He could see you were in trouble._

Keith’s smile grows wider. In Red he feels extraordinarily alive; in Blue he feels undeniably loved. He presses a palm to the inside of the ship. 

“Thank you,” he whispers, and he can almost feel this lion smile. 

_Keith,_ is all it says.

* * *

Lance really, really hates tractor beams. He hates it with a passion unconfined by the realm of his tiny body. Tractor beams were the reason for most of Voltron’s woes, and now they’re stuck in one _again,_ forced to relive this horrible experience of fighting against nothing for what must be the millionth time.

Lance cannot stand it. 

The frustration bubbles up inside him as they’re wrenched apart, Lance thrown to the side along with Keith, yet still caught within the beam. He glances outside, sees the red lion, it being the lightest, getting dragged in the furthest. 

He’s angry. By God, is he angry, he rages powerlessly against this inability to do anything against this piece of technology. He tosses and turns and _burns_ in his lion. It all culminates when Keith whispers, alarmed, “this one might get me.”

No. 

No. 

“No!” he roars, and yanks on his controls. “No!” his eyes narrow in frustration, blood rushes in his ears. His heart pounds. 

Everyone looks up in surprise, but all Lance can think of is _no,_ they aren’t getting Blue and _no,_ they aren’t getting Keith. 

“I said _no!”_ Blue lights up and roars and begins to pull away from the beam, shooting a- is that a, that is a hook out from under it and latching onto the red lion. “This is _my_ lion and you will not have her! Fuck this stupid piece of technology and fuck this fucking situation, I will not let you take Red, and I will not let you take me!”

Lance breaks out of the tractor beam, it’s movement giving Keith enough time to smile and get his hands back on the controls. 

“Hey Red! We can’t have _Lance_ upstaging us,” Keith whistles and pulls back harshly, the hook detaching as he, like Lance, fights with sheer force of will against the beam. The others look at each other, and one by one they pull out of the beam. 

Lance sags in his seat once they’re all out. 

“We’re not done yet,” Shiro warns, and activates his jaw blade. “Get as close as you can to the side of the ship! The beam can’t go diagonal. It’s our best shot!”

“On it!” Keith grins and swings around the side. “I can’t believe we pulled out of the beam.”

Lance grins at his lion. “It’s called the power of believing, Keith, try it sometimes.”

* * *

 

The power of believing, Lance had said. No amount of believing could get him out of this one. He can’t believe he’s in an alien prison cell, but he is. It’s kind of pissing him off, to be honest.Pacing around the empty cell, of course it would be empty, no one visited this planet because the alien species on it were a terrible breed of savagery and cruelty; their advance throughout the solar system only halted by the stampede of the Galra. It made him disappointed and sick; even after they defeat the Galra empire, they’ll always have enemies to face. Will the war ever end? It’s hard to know. 

“Come,” one of the aliens says, and drags him out of the cell. His hands are bound with a material harder than regular handcuffs; that’s pissing him off too. They push him and shove him down the hallway until it opens up into a bigger room where their leader, some obnoxious asshole with a mullet, how dare he, mullets were for _good,_ not for some shitty alien king to take as his aesthetic.

“You refused to tell us who you were before,” the king says, and even his voice is obnoxious, all high-pitched and slimy. Gah. “Maybe you will now.”

Ah, fuck you. As if i would tell him anything, Keith snarls in his mind, and tries to reach out to Red. As it has been since he came here, he came up dead. “And why would I?”

“This one came to rescue you,” the king says, and from the floor a platform rises to the top and there is- there is- _oh god there is Lance._

He’s got a broken nose and it’s dripping blood down his lips. His armour is gone and so is his bayard, he's standing in front of him in the clothes these aliens are wearing, but it’s much too big for him and hangs off his shoulders and covers his hands. Oh god oh god. Blue’s love comes to him in a huge rush that nearly causes him to fall to his knees. Lance. 

“I don’t know him,” Keith chooses to say, turning his head away and his face stony so he doesn’t have to see Lance’s broken expression. 

“You don’t? Then I’ll guess we just have to kill him,” the king smiles and beckons over his guards. The guards knee Lance in the stomach and have him gasp, swing their knives onto his shoulders and let him bleed. 

Lance cries out in pain and falls to his knees. His eyes look at Keith beseechingly. _Voltron is more important. The secrets of Voltron are more important._

The knife readies at his throat, but instead of slicing they carve downwards and run a cut alongside Lance’s thigh. Keith squeezes his eyes shut, but even then he can hear the sudden crack of bone. 

His eyes fly open when Lance screams once more. 

His arm is dangling uselessly by his side, his left one, and oh god Lance is crying, tears are springing to the corners of his eyes as he sees Lance _suffer. There is no Voltron without Lance,_ he belatedly realises. _There is no me without him._ Lance looks at him. 

“Keith,” he calls, and Keith’s resolve snaps. 

No more. No more hurting the only other who Red would let pilot. No more hurting Blue’s. No more hurting a friend. No more hurting his Lance. 

“Lance,” he replies, and Lance blinks blearily at him. “Lance. Lance. I'm coming.”

The king smiles. "So you do know him. Kill him.”

No. Lance, dead? No. Not on Keith’s watch. No. What use is his power if he cannot protect the one thing he wants to? What use is his Galra strength if he cannot save the one who matters the most? 

Lance. Annoying, irritating, insufferable Lance. Lance, with a quip always ready and a comfort on his lips no matter the time. Lance, with his flirting and his desire to entertain. Lance who was kind and gentle and good, who loved and cared and longed to be loved in return. 

Keith allows himself to smile. It stops the king in his tracks. 

“Your friend is about to die,” the king sounds confused. He should be. 

His features twist as he transforms, his skin growing purple, his eyes turning yellow. When he is Galra, he sees more all at once- he sees the king move in slow motion, can smell the scent of blood coming off Lance, hears the distant pounding of a heart he realises is his. He swore never to use his Galra side, but suddenly- if it’s to protect, it’s okay. It’s his strength, no one else’s.

“You’re Galra?!” the king cries out and scrabbles away. 

“I’m _human,”_ he roars, and the cuffs snap. 

He takes care of the two at his side easily, stealing their guns before aiming it at the throne- where the king has long since fled. Lance has dropped to his arms, leaning on hands and knees as he struggles to breathe and keep weight off his left arm. Keith scoops him up in his arms and nestles him into his chest. He is glad he isn’t wearing his jacket, or he'd have ripped it. Even though he’s probably lost it forever, ripping it would’ve been sad. They’d have to synthesise new ones in the castle. 

“You’re such an idiot,” Keith berates him as he runs through the compound, his feet pounding the floor as he ducks to avoid the suddenly low ceilings. “Why did you come alone?”

“I didn’t,” Lance coughs and pushes further into his chest. “They needed a decoy to get your lion. It was an accident that they linked me to you.”

“You-" Keith struggles to come up with something to say to that. Instead he says, his voice gruffer given that he’s still Galra. “I…don’t risk your life like that, moron. We need you to form Voltron.”

“Is that all you need me for?” Lance asks, and Keith wants to reply, but then the boy has passed out in his ams. Keith clutches onto him tighter and runs faster.

* * *

Lance opens his eyes to the slide of a healing pod. He topples out of it and expects to fall on the floor, great wat to start the new day, Lance, when he's caught in sturdy arms. 

“Wow, moron. You just got out, do you want to go back in the pod?” it's Keith. He looks up at the beautiful man and laughs a little. 

“Ah, well, I thought I'd make an entrance,” he says, and then he's swamped by Shiro, who thumps him on the back and swears at him, uses his dad voice to say _never do that again,_ Pidge gives him a hug and dash and Hunk nearly breaks all the ribs in his body. 

Allura waves at him from the side. He wants to make a flirty quip, but looking at Keith he cannot, so instead he says,”did you miss me, princess?”

“Hardly,” she laughs. “Hunk, Pidge, great work on disabling the shields. Shiro good idea on where the lion would be. Lance, well, I shouldn't congratulate you on being an idiot, but I guess, you did it. Kei- that’s all.”

A muscle twitches under Lance’s right eye. While he’s overjoyed that Allura actually _praised_ him for something, can he get an amen, he’s pretty pissed at something. He’s fine when the team ignores his work, it’s usually minor, really, he’d swear he doesn’t care. But something about this doesn’t sit right with him. 

“Ya know, princess,” Lance leans back on the control panel, a little dizzy. “I can’t decide if it’s the leftover effects from the healing pod or whatever, but I’m not too happy with what you just said.”

The team looks up at him in surprise. “Would you like me to praise you more?” she rolls her eyes, but there’s still a teasing smile to her face. 

“No,” Lance rolls his shoulders and runs his tongue nervously over his lips. Gosh, he must still be high on healing juice, because there’s no way Normal Lance would even begin this conversation. He should just end it here with some flirtatious quirk and hide his face for eternity. His eyes run over the paladins, and stops dead at Keith’s eyes. Oh. “The only reason we went into that planet was because they had information on Galra ships, and it’s nature was such that Keith volunteered. And he got that information. So we should probably thank him for his work too.”

You could hear a pin drop in the silence that ensues. Allura’s eyes slide away from him, her smile dying. Lance loves her, he really does, but this is something he feels he has to talk about. He knows Allura doesn’t mean to, but there’s- it’s important to him. 

“He went Galra to protect me, y’know? Busted open his cuffs and everything. It was pretty cool. There can be good Galra out there.”

“Evil runs in their blood,” she hisses. 

Lance feels his eyebrows crease. “And does prejudice run in Alteans?”

His words are like an anvil; they drop hard on the ground and everyone stares in horror at what he’s just said. But Keith is standing there, a brutal, savage smile on his face. His cheeks are flushed and his eyes are bright, and that alone is worth it. 

“I just don’t think you’re being very princessy right now,” Lance shrugs. “I’m fine with ignoring me, but Keith did some good work out there. And you’ve been unfair to him for a while.” 

Allura sighs; her shoulders drop. “Maybe you’re right. I just…”

“You know princess, nothing about me has changed. I’m still Keith that turned up here all those months ago. I didn’t _become_ Galra, I _was._ So…” he rubs the back of his head and offers her a tentative smile. “If you need time, I understand. I just want you to know that…I…I’m still Keith.”

Allura offers him a smile and Lance beams. 

Relieved that he’s okay, one by one they filter out of the room. Lance goes to Blue and sits down in his seat and says, “I'm sorry.”

The lion explodes at him. He feels rage and sickness and love wash over him in heavy waves that set him breathing heavy and heaving. _Don’t ever have so little regard for your life again, my child my love my paladin my Lance. You are more precious than you know._

“I’m sorry,” Lance says again and knocks his head onto the controls. “I won’t do it again, I promise.”

“Empty promises mean nothing, Lance,” a new voice says, and Lance looks up in surprise to see Keith standing next to him with a soft smile on his face. Ah, what an expression. It made him feel like they were back on Earth and it was just the two of them, in his room on a rainy summer day. 

He reaches out a hand and rests it on Keith’s arm. “Blue let you in?”

“We’re best buddies now,” Keith boasts and raps on the lion with the back of his knuckles. “You should get used to it.”

“I knew you've corrupted her,” Lance laughs and stands up, his sudden height pressing Keith into the wall. They stare at each other. 

One heartbeat, two heartbeats. A third. He smiles and reaches out a hand to brush Keith’s bangs away from his face, smiling at the innocence and anger that is revealed to him.

“Don’t ever do something like that again,” Keith runs his hands down Lance’s arms as though he can’t believe he’s real. “Don’t pull that decoy shit again.”

“It worked out, didn’t it?" 

“But what if it didn’t!” Keith roars and his hands come up to grip tightly at his shoulders. “What if it didn’t turn out okay? Then what! I just _believe_ you’ll come back to life? What bullshit!”

Lance holds onto him tightly, moving his hand down such that it grips the back of his neck. He knocks their foreheads together in a swift motion. “Is this you worried about me?”

“You- you,” Keith grits his teeth and puts both hands around Lance’s neck, his fingers splaying out to cover touch his cheeks. “You’re insufferable. I cannot understand why my lion likes you.”

“It’s because you love me,” Lance leans forward enough so that their lips are barely inches away. “Blue just loves everyone. It’s in her nature.”

“It’s in yours too, isn’t it?” Keith asks playfully, his breath dying in his throat when Lance leans forward some more and kisses him. He tastes like space goop and vanilla chapstick, shit, should he have had some mints before hand? Oh god, he should’ve, right? He probably smells awful. Oh god. 

Lance doesn't seem to have a problem with it though, for he leans in even more and presses him firmly up against the wall of his lion. 

When they part, it’s with Lance’s victorious smile. “I’ve wanted to do that since I saw you in the Garrison, but then it turned out you were an asshole.”

“I was never an asshole,” Keith protests. “You just always took offence at whatever I did. I would get grape juice, and you’d say I was copying you. I was not. I just liked grape juice.”

“You were copying me,” Lance sticks out his tongue. 

"Was not.”

“Was too.”

"Was not.”

“Was _too!”_

“Was not,” Keith can feel the irritation come back on. 

“Was t-“ Lance says, but is cut off when Keith presses his lips to his. Ah, what a beautiful summer’s day, he thinks, and leans into him. What a beautiful bond within. 

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading! Please do comment or kudos if you enjoyed this. You can check out my other klance works [here](http://archiveofourown.org/works?utf8=%E2%9C%93&work_search%5Bsort_column%5D=revised_at&work_search%5Bother_tag_names%5D=Keith%2FLance+%28Voltron%29&work_search%5Bquery%5D=&work_search%5Blanguage_id%5D=&work_search%5Bcomplete%5D=0&commit=Sort+and+Filter&user_id=stormfirej)  
> , as well as my Langst (and klance) fic here [his own worth](http://archiveofourown.org/works/11544714)  
> :   
> Thanks again!


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